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Planning Board reviews Xcel Energy concept plan for North 63rd Street service center
Summary
The Boulder Planning Board heard a concept review Aug. 4 for Xcel Energy’s service and operations center (case LUR2026-00026), which will require annexation and site/use reviews; staff and the applicant sought feedback but no decisions were made. The board asked for more detail on fencing, screening, photovoltaics and community benefits while a public commenter urged the city to oppose annexation.
Boulder’s Planning Board on Aug. 4 reviewed an early concept plan for a major redevelopment of Xcel Energy’s service and operations center on North 63rd Street that will require annexation, initial zoning and subsequent site and use review.
Senior city planner Alex Pichaz told the board the concept plan review is advisory only and noted the project triggers concept-level review because “the project is greater than 5 acres, and over a 100,000 square feet of floor area.” Staff said the approximately 14-acre site is currently a county enclave and must be annexed into the city before site review. Alex summarized staff’s key issues: visual screening along the ball fields, ensuring required activated open space (10–20% depending on height), minimizing pavement, and mitigation for outdoor storage that is visible to adjacent parkland. (Transcript uses the address 2633 North 63rd Street in staff materials; the applicant later referenced 2655 North 63rd Street and the project is recorded in the staff packet as case LUR2026-00026.)
Mallory Mooney of Norris Design, representing the applicant (Xcel Energy), described a two‑phase plan to replace an aging service center and fleet garage with a new ~55,000-square-foot service building and a ~33,000-square-foot fleet garage, new detention infrastructure, landscape buffers and improved vehicle circulation. Mooney said the site would remain a secure operations center and added that the team is seeking a modification to allow a 10-foot, no‑climb perimeter fence, saying, “We are proposing a 10 foot tall perimeter fence.”
Board members probed code and operational details: whether outdoor storage counts as open space (staff: it does not), which access points and queuing patterns are proposed, surface materials in storage yards, and how water/sewer connections would be handled. The applicant’s civil engineer, Jim Hastings, clarified that the property is served by city domestic and irrigation meters and connects to a sewer line under Stasio Drive.
Public comment during the hearing consisted of a strongly worded in‑person statement opposing annexation and urging an alternative municipal energy approach. Planning board members offered mostly advisory comments—encouraging more thoughtful perimeter screening and landscape design facing the Stasio ball fields, suggesting on‑site photovoltaic options for covered parking and rooftops, and endorsing employee amenity considerations such as shaded break areas. No formal vote or action was taken; staff and the applicant will use the feedback in future annexation and site‑review submittals.
